charnames - define character names for\N{named} string literal escapes
use charnames ':full';print "\N{GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA} is called sigma.\n";use charnames ':short';print "\N{greek:Sigma} is an upper-case sigma.\n";use charnames qw(cyrillic greek);print "\N{sigma} is Greek sigma, and \N{be} is Cyrillic b.\n";use charnames ":full", ":alias" => { e_ACUTE => "LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE",};print "\N{e_ACUTE} is a small letter e with an acute.\n";use charnames ();print charnames::viacode(0x1234); # prints "ETHIOPIC SYLLABLE SEE"printf "%04X", charnames::vianame("GOTHIC LETTER AHSA"); # prints "10330"Pragmause charnames supports arguments:full,:short, script names and customized aliases. If:full is present, for expansion of\N{CHARNAME}, the stringCHARNAME is first looked up in the list of standard Unicode character names. If:short is present, andCHARNAME has the formSCRIPT:CNAME, thenCNAME is looked up as a letter in scriptSCRIPT. If pragmause charnames is used with script name arguments, then for\N{CHARNAME} the nameCHARNAME is looked up as a letter in the given scripts (in the specified order). Customized aliases are explained in"CUSTOM ALIASES".
For lookup ofCHARNAME inside a given scriptSCRIPTNAME this pragma looks for the names
SCRIPTNAME CAPITAL LETTER CHARNAMESCRIPTNAME SMALL LETTER CHARNAMESCRIPTNAME LETTER CHARNAMEin the table of standard Unicode names. IfCHARNAME is lowercase, then theCAPITAL variant is ignored, otherwise theSMALL variant is ignored.
Note that\N{...} is compile-time, it's a special form of string constant used inside double-quoted strings: in other words, you cannot use variables inside the\N{...}. If you want similar run-time functionality, use charnames::vianame().
For the C0 and C1 control characters (U+0000..U+001F, U+0080..U+009F) as of Unicode 3.1, there are no official Unicode names but you can use instead the ISO 6429 names (LINE FEED, ESCAPE, and so forth). In Unicode 3.2 (as of Perl 5.8) some naming changes take place ISO 6429 has been updated, see"ALIASES". Also note that the U+UU80, U+0081, U+0084, and U+0099 do not have names even in ISO 6429.
Since the Unicode standard uses "U+HHHH", so can you: "\N{U+263a}" is the Unicode smiley face, or "\N{WHITE SMILING FACE}".
The mechanism of translation of\N{...} escapes is general and not hardwired intocharnames.pm. A module can install custom translations (inside the scope whichuses the module) with the following magic incantation:
use charnames ();# for $charnames::hint_bits sub import {shift;$^H |= $charnames::hint_bits;$^H{charnames} = \&translator; }Here translator() is a subroutine which takesCHARNAME as an argument, and returns text to insert into the string instead of the\N{CHARNAME} escape. Since the text to insert should be different inbytes mode and out of it, the function should check the current state ofbytes-flag as in:
use bytes ();# for $bytes::hint_bits sub translator {if ($^H & $bytes::hint_bits) { return bytes_translator(@_);}else { return utf8_translator(@_);} }This version of charnames supports three mechanisms of adding local or customized aliases to standard Unicode naming conventions (:full)
use charnames ":full", ":alias" => { e_ACUTE => "LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE", };my $str = "\N{e_ACUTE}";use charnames ":full", ":alias" => "pro";will try to read "unicore/pro_alias.pl" from the @INC path. Thisfile should return a list in plain perl:(A_GRAVE => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE",A_CIRCUM => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX",A_DIAERES => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS",A_TILDE => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE",A_BREVE => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE",A_RING => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE",A_MACRON => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH MACRON",);use charnames ":alias" => ":pro";works exactly the same as the alias pairs, only this time,":full" is inserted automatically as first argument (if noother argument is given).Returns the full name of the character indicated by the numeric code. The example
print charnames::viacode(0x2722);prints "FOUR TEARDROP-SPOKED ASTERISK".
Returns undef if no name is known for the code.
This works only for the standard names, and does not yet apply to custom translators.
Notice that the name returned for of U+FEFF is "ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE", not "BYTE ORDER MARK".
Returns the code point indicated by the name. The example
printf "%04X", charnames::vianame("FOUR TEARDROP-SPOKED ASTERISK");prints "2722".
Returns undef if the name is unknown.
This works only for the standard names, and does not yet apply to custom translators.
A few aliases have been defined for convenience: instead of having to use the official names
LINE FEED (LF)FORM FEED (FF)CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)NEXT LINE (NEL)(yes, with parentheses) one can use
LINE FEEDFORM FEEDCARRIAGE RETURNNEXT LINELFFFCRNELOne can also use
BYTE ORDER MARKBOMand
ZWNJZWJfor ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER and ZERO WIDTH JOINER.
For backward compatibility one can use the old names for certain C0 and C1 controls
old newHORIZONTAL TABULATION CHARACTER TABULATIONVERTICAL TABULATION LINE TABULATIONFILE SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR FOURGROUP SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR THREERECORD SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR TWOUNIT SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR ONEPARTIAL LINE DOWN PARTIAL LINE FORWARDPARTIAL LINE UP PARTIAL LINE BACKWARDbut the old names in addition to giving the character will also give a warning about being deprecated.
If you ask by name for a character that does not exist, a warning is given and the Unicodereplacement character "\x{FFFD}" is returned.
If you ask by code for a character that does not exist, no warning is given andundef is returned. (Though if you ask for a code point past U+10FFFF you do get a warning.)
Since evaluation of the translation function happens in a middle of compilation (of a string literal), the translation function should not do anyevals orrequires. This restriction should be lifted in a future version of Perl.
Perldoc Browser is maintained by Dan Book (DBOOK). Please contact him via theGitHub issue tracker oremail regarding any issues with the site itself, search, or rendering of documentation.
The Perl documentation is maintained by the Perl 5 Porters in the development of Perl. Please contact them via thePerl issue tracker, themailing list, orIRC to report any issues with the contents or format of the documentation.